What do you think?
Rate this book
The Cleanskin
Some days, even Halley can't find the person she once was. She's changed her name and no one - least of all her husband and son - knows of her past. No one except Aidan, who turns up one day in her small Australian town and shatters the fac ade she's built so carefully.
- GenresContemporary
416 pages, Paperback
Published November 22, 2016
About the author
Laura Bloom
16 books33 followersIt’s the people traditionally left out of the frame who interest Laura the most, as well as what happens after what would be the climax in many stories. A couple reuniting after the war, in IN THE MOOD; a woman who has changed her name and started a new life, only to find her old life catching up with her, in THE CLEANSKIN; what happens when you break up with the perfect person, in CHOOSING ZOE.
Laura’s novels have been shortlisted for the NSW Literary Awards, the ABC Fiction Prize and the Young Australian Readers’ Awards and published in France, the US and the UK.
Laura grew up in Sydney and graduated with a BA, Communications from the University of Technology, Sydney. She has worked in the areas of youth policy, social justice and health promotion, and has travelled widely, including living for spells in Germany, India, the UK, and as a toddler in New Guinea, which is where she began her love affair with the sub-tropics.
She now lives in a small town near Byron Bay on the East Coast of Australia with her chosen family, including her godson and her son who has autism. For such a word-based person it’s been an extraordinary journey to learn to love and communicate beyond words.
Laura’s novels have been shortlisted for the NSW Literary Awards, the ABC Fiction Prize and the Young Australian Readers’ Awards and published in France, the US and the UK.
Laura grew up in Sydney and graduated with a BA, Communications from the University of Technology, Sydney. She has worked in the areas of youth policy, social justice and health promotion, and has travelled widely, including living for spells in Germany, India, the UK, and as a toddler in New Guinea, which is where she began her love affair with the sub-tropics.
She now lives in a small town near Byron Bay on the East Coast of Australia with her chosen family, including her godson and her son who has autism. For such a word-based person it’s been an extraordinary journey to learn to love and communicate beyond words.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 17, 2016
4.5 stars
Halley has moved to the quiet country town of Mullumbimby to forget her past and start a new life. She now has a loving husband and a teenage son, who know nothing of her previous life. But in the back of her mind is always the worry that her past will catch up with her because she knows “they will never let you go”.
Cleanskin contains a complex mix of characters that will have your emotions whirling. I loved them, disliked them, worried about them, couldn’t quite understand them and then perfectly understood where they were coming from. Each character was complex, flawed, real but they were never in your face. It was all very subtle.
The main plot focuses on the actions of the IRA and the troubles in Northern Ireland. However Bloom doesn’t push any agendas as the characters take centre stage and what a truly colourful and frustrating, although understandable, lot of characters Bloom created.
The story jumps around between time frames and we are left with a lot of mysteries at the start which frustrated me a little but as the story unfolds I came to not only understand the story but also understand Halley’s frame of mind.
Neither plot driven nor character driven Bloom has written a unique and complex story of family, love, religion, relationships, manipulation and discontent.
I love a good twist and this one I didn’t see coming. I was absolutely gobsmacked and had to read the page twice to make sure I had it right.
Halley has moved to the quiet country town of Mullumbimby to forget her past and start a new life. She now has a loving husband and a teenage son, who know nothing of her previous life. But in the back of her mind is always the worry that her past will catch up with her because she knows “they will never let you go”.
Cleanskin contains a complex mix of characters that will have your emotions whirling. I loved them, disliked them, worried about them, couldn’t quite understand them and then perfectly understood where they were coming from. Each character was complex, flawed, real but they were never in your face. It was all very subtle.
The main plot focuses on the actions of the IRA and the troubles in Northern Ireland. However Bloom doesn’t push any agendas as the characters take centre stage and what a truly colourful and frustrating, although understandable, lot of characters Bloom created.
The story jumps around between time frames and we are left with a lot of mysteries at the start which frustrated me a little but as the story unfolds I came to not only understand the story but also understand Halley’s frame of mind.
Neither plot driven nor character driven Bloom has written a unique and complex story of family, love, religion, relationships, manipulation and discontent.
I love a good twist and this one I didn’t see coming. I was absolutely gobsmacked and had to read the page twice to make sure I had it right.
October 2, 2016
Halley, Matt and their son Benny lived a quiet life in Mullumbimby, a small country town near Byron Bay in New South Wales – Halley and Matt ran the local café, where the locals often congregated. But Halley wasn’t happy – frustration and memories plus the inability to speak about days gone by was strong. Until the day a person from her long ago past turned up in the café and turned Halley’s world upside down.
Aiden visited his brother Liam in the English prison on a regular basis – he felt loyalty because he was his brother, but was torn over Liam’s guilt. When Liam told Aiden to go to Australia to find Megan he didn’t expect it to be easy. And he questioned his continued acceptance over always doing what Liam told him – his other brother Dom had, and look what happened there…
When Aiden made contact with Halley, she was scared – no one knew about her past; not her husband and son, none of their friends – no one. She wanted to keep it that way. But was that even possible? Liam was determined the past would be known – what would Halley do?
The Cleanskin by Aussie author Laura Bloom is set between Australia and England and touches on The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the consequences of particular actions. The family heartbreak and devastation amid the IRA bombing and terrorism – the way naïve young people were swallowed up in the mess. Beautifully told, the characters are complex and the struggles real. Highly recommended.
With thanks to The Author People for this copy to read in exchange for my honest review.
Aiden visited his brother Liam in the English prison on a regular basis – he felt loyalty because he was his brother, but was torn over Liam’s guilt. When Liam told Aiden to go to Australia to find Megan he didn’t expect it to be easy. And he questioned his continued acceptance over always doing what Liam told him – his other brother Dom had, and look what happened there…
When Aiden made contact with Halley, she was scared – no one knew about her past; not her husband and son, none of their friends – no one. She wanted to keep it that way. But was that even possible? Liam was determined the past would be known – what would Halley do?
The Cleanskin by Aussie author Laura Bloom is set between Australia and England and touches on The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the consequences of particular actions. The family heartbreak and devastation amid the IRA bombing and terrorism – the way naïve young people were swallowed up in the mess. Beautifully told, the characters are complex and the struggles real. Highly recommended.
With thanks to The Author People for this copy to read in exchange for my honest review.
September 15, 2016
My View:
A wonderfully reflective and poignant narrative with a cast of well developed, flawed and passionate characters set in the locations of Ireland, Australia and India. Politics, domestic and international hold centre stage, manipulation is crowned king of this drama.
But there is much more to this story than politics and manipulation, there are so many layers to discover; relationships, love, marriage, forgiveness, growth, innocence and trust betrayed pepper this narrative with interesting scenarios and moral dilemmas. After you finish reading what has been an intense and mysterious story (from the very first chapters you are aware that something needs to be shared, to be revealed…eventually it is …and much much more). And there is a massive twist at the end that will leave you deep in thought – you will not see this coming.
Mysterious, poignant, reflective, honest…well written, engaging, intelligent and thought provoking. Make sure you read this book!
A wonderfully reflective and poignant narrative with a cast of well developed, flawed and passionate characters set in the locations of Ireland, Australia and India. Politics, domestic and international hold centre stage, manipulation is crowned king of this drama.
But there is much more to this story than politics and manipulation, there are so many layers to discover; relationships, love, marriage, forgiveness, growth, innocence and trust betrayed pepper this narrative with interesting scenarios and moral dilemmas. After you finish reading what has been an intense and mysterious story (from the very first chapters you are aware that something needs to be shared, to be revealed…eventually it is …and much much more). And there is a massive twist at the end that will leave you deep in thought – you will not see this coming.
Mysterious, poignant, reflective, honest…well written, engaging, intelligent and thought provoking. Make sure you read this book!
September 27, 2016
I’m lucky enough to have already read The Cleanskin and it’s my book of the year. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s one of the most accomplished and moving novels about Australia that I have read. It speaks the truth about what trauma can do to people, down through the generations. It’s a book about how the past affects us and lives through us, and what consequences really mean and look like in someone’s life and someone’s family. It tackles the impact of sectarianism in Ireland and the UK, and how that has affected us here in Australia. How that conflict is deeply ingrained in our country’s roots and in many of our own ancestries.
It is a big book, and an important book, but it’s also a very human, funny and deeply moving book.
Halley is one of the most subtle, well-written and wonderful female protagonists I have ever had the pleasure of reading a novel about. I find some female protagonists too warm and perfect and prim – completely unrealistic and way too heartwarming. I don’t want to receive a pep-talk, I want to read a really good novel. Flawed, intelligent, heroic, passionate, real ¬– Halley is a true original.
One of Laura Bloom’s many strengths is that she is able to write about both women and men, and from both points of view, with great skill, subtlety and reach. Like in her last novel, In The Mood, her male characters are just as rich, multi-faceted and human as the women characters she creates. Aidan provides a truly memorable and moving counterpoint to Halley throughout the novel.
I thoroughly recommend The Cleanskin – it’s destined to be an Australian classic.
It is a big book, and an important book, but it’s also a very human, funny and deeply moving book.
Halley is one of the most subtle, well-written and wonderful female protagonists I have ever had the pleasure of reading a novel about. I find some female protagonists too warm and perfect and prim – completely unrealistic and way too heartwarming. I don’t want to receive a pep-talk, I want to read a really good novel. Flawed, intelligent, heroic, passionate, real ¬– Halley is a true original.
One of Laura Bloom’s many strengths is that she is able to write about both women and men, and from both points of view, with great skill, subtlety and reach. Like in her last novel, In The Mood, her male characters are just as rich, multi-faceted and human as the women characters she creates. Aidan provides a truly memorable and moving counterpoint to Halley throughout the novel.
I thoroughly recommend The Cleanskin – it’s destined to be an Australian classic.
August 24, 2016
This is a pretty intense read and thoroughly intriguing. I had no idea where the story was going, yet I was compelled to keep reading, with the pace ramping up and carrying me through to a most unexpected ending.
The characters are complicated, sad, unsettled and searching. Some I admired, some troubled me, others I couldn’t warm to at all. (So, hats off to the author for engineering such a range of reader emotions through clever and considered characterisation.)
There is a lot of time travel involved in order to deliver background story, but this is well handled to avoid reader confusion, making this complex plot a very satisfying read.
The characters are complicated, sad, unsettled and searching. Some I admired, some troubled me, others I couldn’t warm to at all. (So, hats off to the author for engineering such a range of reader emotions through clever and considered characterisation.)
There is a lot of time travel involved in order to deliver background story, but this is well handled to avoid reader confusion, making this complex plot a very satisfying read.
September 11, 2016
This is a big, ambitious book. It's a thriller that's also an intense human drama. It tells a big story: the interaction in the Irish diaspora between the margins and the centre, the phenomenon of terrorism, the hot phase of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and its eventual ending in the peace accords. It also tells a small story: how events conspire to draw Megan, a young woman from Catholic aristocracy in Sydney's affluent north shore into identification with her Irish Catholic origins, and then involvement in an IRA bombing of a London pub. When the action of the book begins, Megan is a middle aged woman, living in Mullumbimby, a small country town near Byron Bay. Only she's not Megan anymore, but Halley, having assumed a new identity and a new life, with a husband and a son and a community, who know nothing of her past.
It's a great hook for the story, and the arrival of Aidan in Mullumbimby, looking for Megan after all these years on a mission from his IRA brother, draws the hook and unravels the messy weave of the lives blighted by the Troubles.
One of Aidan's brothers was Halley's first love, and the other brother was the main IRA operative who recruits Megan/Halley, for her "cleanskin" appeal. It appears that, in the nightmarish sectarianism and betrayals that typified the Troubles, where you were never sure if you were talking to an informer/betrayer/double agent, the IRA looked to outer realms of the Irish diaspora for those like Halley who were previously uninvolved, and whose loyalties were more dependable.
I love the characters - they are complex, contrary and totally believable. Megan / Halley, at its centre, is a magnificent creation. I love how she is not a "warm, witty and wise" woman. She's flawed and fierce. But she's also loving, passionate, and effective. She's both a victim and a perpetrator. She is at the mercy of larger events, especially as a young woman, and I love the way her personal situation and personality link up with larger events to explain how a girl from wealthy, successful family in Sydney could get drawn into IRA terrorism. In the course of the book, we see Halley getting drawn in over her head, struggling with and against herself, and trying, and in many ways, succeeding, to create a good life. I really like that she's not some perfect woman/mother/wife. It's a relief.
Bloom's control of the story, the way she unfolds the multiple points of drama, is masterful. The progressive revelation of submerged events means that the story never stops. In fact, it's one of those rare books that picks up pace and intensity throughout.
I love the character of Aidan. In fact I got a lot out of the minor characters generally. Maybe because the book was so well structured, I could follow each character's story easily. Aidan was a lovely counterpoint to Halley - yin to Hally's yang. Halley's struggle had been to join the struggle, while Aidan's is to leave it. Bloom's portrays the devastating impact of the Troubles on the characters. Even the characters much more peripherally and unwittingly involved in the Troubles, have been harmed, like Halley's husband and son, because of the deep scars in Halley.
Interestingly, perhaps the two characters who are most successful in playing the hand life deals them are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Dev, the son of victims of India's Partition, has radically and successfully turned his back on his troubled past, while Liam journeys into the heart of the darkness of the Troubles, with surprising "success". It's a great dilemma that the character who uses the most despicable means achieves the most successful results. It forced me, as a reader, to engage with the muddy, violent and painful complexity of the situation.
Although The Cleanskin is a novel through and through, and in no way an essay, I think the book is a brilliant way of examining the ideas behind the Troubles and, more generally, about what to do when you are born into intractable problems and events. Each of the character's lives has something to say about this issue, which in some ways is the central concern of the story. I like how Bloom does not feel compelled to come to a conclusion on this issue. Rather, her characters tease out the consequences of taking different approaches to this scenario. It's an amazing achievement that she engages so deeply with ideas and themes while having characters that are rounded non-caricatures.
Bloom has an exquisite feel for the complexity of human feeling and behaviour, and an immense skill at fitting all of that complexity together in characters and times and places that work together for the story as a whole, eg, Halley's hunger to experience a wider world, including sexual experience, conflicts with her boyfriend Dom's steadfast intent to focus on a small world and stick to the Bible's rules, while fitting together in a malignant way with Liam's use of sexual seduction to achieve his terrorist aims.
In a very contemporary way, the lives in The Cleanskin span the globe. We get a specific sense of time and place in the grottiness of bleak London, the smartness of wealthy Sydney, the tropical lushness of the Northern Rivers, the poor bleakness of Belfast, and even some scenes in the temple towns of Southern India. Again a relief: the terrorists and their lives were so unglamorous.
The book is packed with lovely scenes, observations and dialogue. It has a richness from the proliferation of observations that are not strictly required to do the work of the book but decorate the reading experience. Halley is "filled with nostalgia for the way she knew things would never be". In Aidan's eyes, Australia is "That sunny place where history seems like a chimera, until you realise it's you that can never let it go". The language is beautiful and economical without being showy.
English novelist EM Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, argues that, in most books, either plot prevails or character prevails. You can have some books, like most books by Thomas Hardy, where the characters are amazing and true, but the plots are tortured; or you can have most of crime and detective fiction, where the plots drive the books, and the characters of often mere ciphers for moving the plot along. In The Cleanskin, Bloom has achieved something rare: a book with a great driving plotline, filled with complex characters whose fates evolve from their idiosyncratic personalities.
It's a great hook for the story, and the arrival of Aidan in Mullumbimby, looking for Megan after all these years on a mission from his IRA brother, draws the hook and unravels the messy weave of the lives blighted by the Troubles.
One of Aidan's brothers was Halley's first love, and the other brother was the main IRA operative who recruits Megan/Halley, for her "cleanskin" appeal. It appears that, in the nightmarish sectarianism and betrayals that typified the Troubles, where you were never sure if you were talking to an informer/betrayer/double agent, the IRA looked to outer realms of the Irish diaspora for those like Halley who were previously uninvolved, and whose loyalties were more dependable.
I love the characters - they are complex, contrary and totally believable. Megan / Halley, at its centre, is a magnificent creation. I love how she is not a "warm, witty and wise" woman. She's flawed and fierce. But she's also loving, passionate, and effective. She's both a victim and a perpetrator. She is at the mercy of larger events, especially as a young woman, and I love the way her personal situation and personality link up with larger events to explain how a girl from wealthy, successful family in Sydney could get drawn into IRA terrorism. In the course of the book, we see Halley getting drawn in over her head, struggling with and against herself, and trying, and in many ways, succeeding, to create a good life. I really like that she's not some perfect woman/mother/wife. It's a relief.
Bloom's control of the story, the way she unfolds the multiple points of drama, is masterful. The progressive revelation of submerged events means that the story never stops. In fact, it's one of those rare books that picks up pace and intensity throughout.
I love the character of Aidan. In fact I got a lot out of the minor characters generally. Maybe because the book was so well structured, I could follow each character's story easily. Aidan was a lovely counterpoint to Halley - yin to Hally's yang. Halley's struggle had been to join the struggle, while Aidan's is to leave it. Bloom's portrays the devastating impact of the Troubles on the characters. Even the characters much more peripherally and unwittingly involved in the Troubles, have been harmed, like Halley's husband and son, because of the deep scars in Halley.
Interestingly, perhaps the two characters who are most successful in playing the hand life deals them are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Dev, the son of victims of India's Partition, has radically and successfully turned his back on his troubled past, while Liam journeys into the heart of the darkness of the Troubles, with surprising "success". It's a great dilemma that the character who uses the most despicable means achieves the most successful results. It forced me, as a reader, to engage with the muddy, violent and painful complexity of the situation.
Although The Cleanskin is a novel through and through, and in no way an essay, I think the book is a brilliant way of examining the ideas behind the Troubles and, more generally, about what to do when you are born into intractable problems and events. Each of the character's lives has something to say about this issue, which in some ways is the central concern of the story. I like how Bloom does not feel compelled to come to a conclusion on this issue. Rather, her characters tease out the consequences of taking different approaches to this scenario. It's an amazing achievement that she engages so deeply with ideas and themes while having characters that are rounded non-caricatures.
Bloom has an exquisite feel for the complexity of human feeling and behaviour, and an immense skill at fitting all of that complexity together in characters and times and places that work together for the story as a whole, eg, Halley's hunger to experience a wider world, including sexual experience, conflicts with her boyfriend Dom's steadfast intent to focus on a small world and stick to the Bible's rules, while fitting together in a malignant way with Liam's use of sexual seduction to achieve his terrorist aims.
In a very contemporary way, the lives in The Cleanskin span the globe. We get a specific sense of time and place in the grottiness of bleak London, the smartness of wealthy Sydney, the tropical lushness of the Northern Rivers, the poor bleakness of Belfast, and even some scenes in the temple towns of Southern India. Again a relief: the terrorists and their lives were so unglamorous.
The book is packed with lovely scenes, observations and dialogue. It has a richness from the proliferation of observations that are not strictly required to do the work of the book but decorate the reading experience. Halley is "filled with nostalgia for the way she knew things would never be". In Aidan's eyes, Australia is "That sunny place where history seems like a chimera, until you realise it's you that can never let it go". The language is beautiful and economical without being showy.
English novelist EM Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, argues that, in most books, either plot prevails or character prevails. You can have some books, like most books by Thomas Hardy, where the characters are amazing and true, but the plots are tortured; or you can have most of crime and detective fiction, where the plots drive the books, and the characters of often mere ciphers for moving the plot along. In The Cleanskin, Bloom has achieved something rare: a book with a great driving plotline, filled with complex characters whose fates evolve from their idiosyncratic personalities.
September 25, 2016
The Cleanskin by Laura Bloom is a well written that ties a haunting past and the uneducated choices a naïve young girl makes, while believing she is making a difference to 'The Troubles' that Ireland is involved in.
These choices come back to haunt her many years later after relocating and changing her name and dropping everything she knows a holds dear. Halley formally Megan has spent many years recreating herself and finds a sort of happiness with her husband and son in a laid back country town in New South Wales.
The Aiden reappears in her life, her secret past starts to unravel.
The storyline travels backwards and forward and follows the story that brought Halley to today.
A bittersweet story that has believable characters and facts. Bloom has tied it all together and will have you feeling many different emotions towards the different characters.
I received The Cleanskin by Laura Bloom through a Book Club Read & Review for Beauty and Lace Book Club and The Author People. Review is also posted on Beauty and Lace Website.
These choices come back to haunt her many years later after relocating and changing her name and dropping everything she knows a holds dear. Halley formally Megan has spent many years recreating herself and finds a sort of happiness with her husband and son in a laid back country town in New South Wales.
The Aiden reappears in her life, her secret past starts to unravel.
The storyline travels backwards and forward and follows the story that brought Halley to today.
A bittersweet story that has believable characters and facts. Bloom has tied it all together and will have you feeling many different emotions towards the different characters.
I received The Cleanskin by Laura Bloom through a Book Club Read & Review for Beauty and Lace Book Club and The Author People. Review is also posted on Beauty and Lace Website.
October 19, 2016
In ‘The Cleanskin’ Laura Bloom skilfully weaves the big concepts - politics, relationships, religion, history, family and sex - into the story of Halley (or Megan, in her former life) a mid-30’s woman eking out a living with her partner, Matt, as a café owner in idyllic northern NSW.
Halley’s secrets have made her an outsider in the relationship between Matt and their son Benny; she feels she is not quite liked and not quite trusted. Bloom’s observations on the nature of secrets and relationships, and on a woman’s experience of ageing, regret, guilt and self-disgust – and the moments of sweetness and grace where blessed relief can still be found - would be enough in themselves to sustain a ‘women’s fiction’ novel.
Yet The Cleanskin is about much more than that. Halley is a rare female protagonist: a woman who, as the younger Megan, had consciously and deliberately committed a significant act of violence. As the story of Megan’s recruitment to the politics of Northern Ireland unfolds, Bloom subtly and plausibly explains how an idealistic young person with a tragic family history can become radicalised. It is a testament to Bloom’s sure hand with her characters that they can speak to each other of politics, religion and terrorism – in both its past and present complexion - without losing their authenticity. The characters in this story reveal themselves slowly and thoughtfully, and while Bloom is gentle with them all, she makes excuses for none.
The people within the novel are realistic, but Bloom does not exert herself to make them especially lovable or compelling. It is not the characters that resonate long after the story is over, but those big concepts and the questions that they raise – particularly for Australian readers who grew up in communities that may have lent in-principle or even material support to ‘the Cause’. At what point is loyalty to one’s own people and country no longer honourable, but morally corrupt?
Halley’s secrets have made her an outsider in the relationship between Matt and their son Benny; she feels she is not quite liked and not quite trusted. Bloom’s observations on the nature of secrets and relationships, and on a woman’s experience of ageing, regret, guilt and self-disgust – and the moments of sweetness and grace where blessed relief can still be found - would be enough in themselves to sustain a ‘women’s fiction’ novel.
Yet The Cleanskin is about much more than that. Halley is a rare female protagonist: a woman who, as the younger Megan, had consciously and deliberately committed a significant act of violence. As the story of Megan’s recruitment to the politics of Northern Ireland unfolds, Bloom subtly and plausibly explains how an idealistic young person with a tragic family history can become radicalised. It is a testament to Bloom’s sure hand with her characters that they can speak to each other of politics, religion and terrorism – in both its past and present complexion - without losing their authenticity. The characters in this story reveal themselves slowly and thoughtfully, and while Bloom is gentle with them all, she makes excuses for none.
The people within the novel are realistic, but Bloom does not exert herself to make them especially lovable or compelling. It is not the characters that resonate long after the story is over, but those big concepts and the questions that they raise – particularly for Australian readers who grew up in communities that may have lent in-principle or even material support to ‘the Cause’. At what point is loyalty to one’s own people and country no longer honourable, but morally corrupt?
May 9, 2017
You know sometimes you are browsing in the library and you see a book and you have no idea what its about but you pick it up and put it in your library bag regardless? Well this book? It was one of those moments. In truth though when I did read the full blurb on Goodreads I knew I had to read it because there is no book about the Troubles in Belfast that I can not read, so when I learned there was a lose connection to that it went straight to the top of my TBR.
Halley has moved to Mullimbimby in Northern NSW to escape her past, she has changed her name, she is married and has a teenage son who have no idea of her past. Then one day Aidan arrives in town, he is the younger brother of your first love Dom and the unresolved history she has.
The story takes place over multiple locations, time periods and characters. The perspective is coming from Halley and Aidan and we see the plot reveal itself through their recollections and as new facts reveal themselves. Aidan is the younger brother of Halley's first love so we learn about it, there troubled elder brother Liam and what happened to their Father. They grew up in Belfast, a Catholic family during the 70's and 80's during some of the worst fighting in the troubles at that time.
The way the plot develops its difficult to really discuss anything because it could be a spoiler. The book has complex relationships, its very tight and tense, it reveals the impact of trauma on a family and the ripple effect throughout not only your own life but then to the relationships you develop along the way. I was intrigued reading the book and I was compelled to get to the end and see what happened. It was satisfying but I thought there might be a more, it felt like it scratched the surface and I wanted to know more. So that probably is a good point overall.
I'm going to tell you about a pet peeve of mine, are you like me and are frustrated when the book cover doesn't match the book? This cover? The main character has long black hair with a heavy fringe.. The woman on the cover, short blonde hair... Why publishers, why?
Overall though it was a good read and its one I will be pondering as I wonder what's happening to the characters now.
3.75 stars
See more of my reviews on my blog https://mhmreadsandthings.wordpress.c...
Halley has moved to Mullimbimby in Northern NSW to escape her past, she has changed her name, she is married and has a teenage son who have no idea of her past. Then one day Aidan arrives in town, he is the younger brother of your first love Dom and the unresolved history she has.
The story takes place over multiple locations, time periods and characters. The perspective is coming from Halley and Aidan and we see the plot reveal itself through their recollections and as new facts reveal themselves. Aidan is the younger brother of Halley's first love so we learn about it, there troubled elder brother Liam and what happened to their Father. They grew up in Belfast, a Catholic family during the 70's and 80's during some of the worst fighting in the troubles at that time.
The way the plot develops its difficult to really discuss anything because it could be a spoiler. The book has complex relationships, its very tight and tense, it reveals the impact of trauma on a family and the ripple effect throughout not only your own life but then to the relationships you develop along the way. I was intrigued reading the book and I was compelled to get to the end and see what happened. It was satisfying but I thought there might be a more, it felt like it scratched the surface and I wanted to know more. So that probably is a good point overall.
I'm going to tell you about a pet peeve of mine, are you like me and are frustrated when the book cover doesn't match the book? This cover? The main character has long black hair with a heavy fringe.. The woman on the cover, short blonde hair... Why publishers, why?
Overall though it was a good read and its one I will be pondering as I wonder what's happening to the characters now.
3.75 stars
See more of my reviews on my blog https://mhmreadsandthings.wordpress.c...
March 9, 2017
Haley is living in Mullumbimby where she runs a cafe with her partner and his young son but she was once Megan and living with her prosperous Irish Catholic family in Sydney and friends with a charming family with young boys she grew up with. She is now estranged from all of them and when Aidan, the youngest of these young men seeks her out she feels threatened and unsafe.
The book constantly moves from her life as Megan and working through her family's disgrace and growing interest in boys and sex and the problems facing Catholics sympathetic to the Troubles in Northern Ireland to her present existence in northern NSW as Haley.
She is not a very likeable character as either Megan or Haley however much I wanted to sympathise with her predicament. We were about to delve into activities with the IRA but I found the action too scattered and hard to engage with when it moved into different time zones.
Everyone seemed to enjoy this book but I simply couldn't see what everyone else could see. I abandoned it at page 87.
The book constantly moves from her life as Megan and working through her family's disgrace and growing interest in boys and sex and the problems facing Catholics sympathetic to the Troubles in Northern Ireland to her present existence in northern NSW as Haley.
She is not a very likeable character as either Megan or Haley however much I wanted to sympathise with her predicament. We were about to delve into activities with the IRA but I found the action too scattered and hard to engage with when it moved into different time zones.
Everyone seemed to enjoy this book but I simply couldn't see what everyone else could see. I abandoned it at page 87.
December 27, 2023
The Cleanskin is a story about what happens in communities when sectarian conflicts are involved. Halley made a new life in Australia with her husband and son. Until one day, Aidan arrived to shatter her perfect life. However, Aidan did not realise that making Halley accept what she did in her previous life would change their lives forever. The readers of Cleanskin will continue to follow Halley and Aidan to discover what happens.
I wouldn't say I liked reading this book for several reasons. One, I did not engage with the book or the characters. I found the book to be slow and confusing. I wouldn't say I like Laura Bloom's writing style or her portrayal of her characters. However, Laura Bloom does an excellent job of describing the settings of The Cleanskin.
The readers will learn about the twin peaks of the Chincogan Mountains Near Mullumbimby, New South Wales. Also, the readers will understand that everyone has a story and should be able to have a second chance at a new life.
I recommend this book.
I wouldn't say I liked reading this book for several reasons. One, I did not engage with the book or the characters. I found the book to be slow and confusing. I wouldn't say I like Laura Bloom's writing style or her portrayal of her characters. However, Laura Bloom does an excellent job of describing the settings of The Cleanskin.
The readers will learn about the twin peaks of the Chincogan Mountains Near Mullumbimby, New South Wales. Also, the readers will understand that everyone has a story and should be able to have a second chance at a new life.
I recommend this book.
January 7, 2018
Second book by an Australian writer. I dislike the title though I understand the reason behind it (person reinvents herself after making bad decisions in her youth). I’m not sure the reasons behind some of the actions were successfully communicated (not to me anyway) but overall I enjoyed the book.
May 21, 2017
The Cleanskin was a really enjoyable read, with interesting, well-drawn characters, and a plot that twists and slowly reveals the heart of the tale.
The story opens in Mullumbimby, in northern NSW, a setting very familiar to the author, drawn in gorgeous, flowing prose. The central character, Halley, is complex and flawed, and obviously harbouring a huge secret in her past, which is about to catch up with her and threaten her comfortable existence.
Aidan, an Irishman from her murky past, threatens to derail her life when he suddenly appears in her home town. He too is a multifaceted character, with his own conflicting motivators.
It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it seems, that her perfect home life is as flawed as any, and that she bears deep scars from the past, eventually revealed in a satisfyingly massive plot twist.
This is a well-writen literary thriller. It's a page-turner with excellent characterisation, and wonderful prose. I highly recommend it.
The story opens in Mullumbimby, in northern NSW, a setting very familiar to the author, drawn in gorgeous, flowing prose. The central character, Halley, is complex and flawed, and obviously harbouring a huge secret in her past, which is about to catch up with her and threaten her comfortable existence.
Aidan, an Irishman from her murky past, threatens to derail her life when he suddenly appears in her home town. He too is a multifaceted character, with his own conflicting motivators.
It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it seems, that her perfect home life is as flawed as any, and that she bears deep scars from the past, eventually revealed in a satisfyingly massive plot twist.
This is a well-writen literary thriller. It's a page-turner with excellent characterisation, and wonderful prose. I highly recommend it.
November 26, 2016
The cover should have warned me what lay ahead, but the premise of a Northern Ireland Troubles thriller with links to current day Byron Bay sounded intriguing. Halley meets Aidan, who is on a mission for his brother Liam. Halley, it seems, has not always been Halley the Mullumbimby cafe owner and had some involvement with Liam on a paramilitary mission in London some years back...
The novel starts out like a pretty standard romance - Kimberley Brown's Trusting a Stranger comes to mind - as Halley is persuaded by Aidan to turn her life upside down. The back story seems incomplete - why would Aidan want to meet Halley? How did he find Halley? Why is Halley in hiding anyway?
As the details start to fill in, they don't seem quite right. Anyone with half an idea of Northern Irish politics will spot that the wrong people seem to be doing the wrong things at the wrong time. The timelines seem to be impossible to follow, with Liam and Aidan and Halley/Megan moving backwards and forwards from Australia to Europe and back again, lack of clarity of motivation at any given point, Liam being in prison and out of prison and in prison again seemingly at will, lack of clarity about the mission, when it was supposed to take place, who was involved and what their roles were. And as explanations are offered for why some of the details seem off, other details unravel behind them.
This is not written like a thriller - way too much focus on Aidan's sinewy body and hot breath - and seems a bit plotty for a romance. It tries to do both but succeeds at neither. Sorry Laura Bloom, this really wasn't my cup of Nambarrie.
The novel starts out like a pretty standard romance - Kimberley Brown's Trusting a Stranger comes to mind - as Halley is persuaded by Aidan to turn her life upside down. The back story seems incomplete - why would Aidan want to meet Halley? How did he find Halley? Why is Halley in hiding anyway?
As the details start to fill in, they don't seem quite right. Anyone with half an idea of Northern Irish politics will spot that the wrong people seem to be doing the wrong things at the wrong time. The timelines seem to be impossible to follow, with Liam and Aidan and Halley/Megan moving backwards and forwards from Australia to Europe and back again, lack of clarity of motivation at any given point, Liam being in prison and out of prison and in prison again seemingly at will, lack of clarity about the mission, when it was supposed to take place, who was involved and what their roles were. And as explanations are offered for why some of the details seem off, other details unravel behind them.
This is not written like a thriller - way too much focus on Aidan's sinewy body and hot breath - and seems a bit plotty for a romance. It tries to do both but succeeds at neither. Sorry Laura Bloom, this really wasn't my cup of Nambarrie.
December 16, 2016
With “The Cleanskin”, Laura Bloom goes back to war; to war and to her fascination with the life-giving power of truth. As in her previous book “In the Mood”, she writes about the domesticity of war and delves into the carnage we bring home, carry within ourselves and pass onto our children, for generations.
In “The Cleanskin”, Bloom writes of the blood and gore of civil wars, of their blurred lines and ugly motivations; of the terrifying cruelty of mobs and of the trauma their acts cause. She writes eloquently of grief, loss and vendettas (when they are clan-specific, reciprocal and multi-generational, we Italians call them “faidas”; the breath and precision of our vocabulary betraying our long-lasting passion for divisions).
Bloom crafts a story where multi-faceted characters give life their best shot and end up with flawed, stunted but believable outcomes. The status quo cracks once Truth enters the fray; unannounced and frightening like a Greek goddess, she bestows instead of destroying the second chance the protagonist has spent her life straining for.
Bloom writes perceptively about teenagehood, painting it as the glarey minefield it truly is, and about the much less glamorous middle age, when evil manifests as inertia more often than as a spectacularly wrong move. She impeccably situates her story in tropical lushness you’ll almost be able to smell and in a London whose grey will bleed into you.
“The Cleanskin” is intelligent, layered and heartfelt. It will remain with you the way great books do.
In “The Cleanskin”, Bloom writes of the blood and gore of civil wars, of their blurred lines and ugly motivations; of the terrifying cruelty of mobs and of the trauma their acts cause. She writes eloquently of grief, loss and vendettas (when they are clan-specific, reciprocal and multi-generational, we Italians call them “faidas”; the breath and precision of our vocabulary betraying our long-lasting passion for divisions).
Bloom crafts a story where multi-faceted characters give life their best shot and end up with flawed, stunted but believable outcomes. The status quo cracks once Truth enters the fray; unannounced and frightening like a Greek goddess, she bestows instead of destroying the second chance the protagonist has spent her life straining for.
Bloom writes perceptively about teenagehood, painting it as the glarey minefield it truly is, and about the much less glamorous middle age, when evil manifests as inertia more often than as a spectacularly wrong move. She impeccably situates her story in tropical lushness you’ll almost be able to smell and in a London whose grey will bleed into you.
“The Cleanskin” is intelligent, layered and heartfelt. It will remain with you the way great books do.
November 22, 2016
Beautiful writing and a tense and complex plot.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews